- Not a scam in the sense of a fake organization, but the pay to play worry has a documented history and a real structural cause: dues fund BBB.
- In 2010 ABC News reported that a fee paid to a local BBB got a nonexistent business an A-minus. BBB's CEO called it a sales staff mistake and said owners cannot buy A grades.
- BBB's published rating elements do not include accreditation or dues, and non-accredited businesses can hold A+ profiles.
- Accreditation requires at least a B rating, so accredited profiles will tend to show higher grades without any payment buying them.
- If a firm or caller claims to have a back door to the BBB, that is the actual scam signal.
On this page
The Honest Short Answer
The BBB is not a scam in the sense of a fake or fraudulent organization, but the pay to play criticism is not baseless either, and an owner who raises it is asking a fair question.
Search results on this topic split into two camps. One says the BBB is a shakedown. The other says it is a harmless consumer service. Both skip the middle, which is where the useful facts are. We are not here to defend the BBB or attack it. We are here to separate what is documented, what BBB says today, and what you can verify yourself. This guide is part of our About the BBB hub, and it assumes you are a business owner who has real reasons to be skeptical.
| Claim you will read | What the evidence supports |
|---|---|
| The BBB is a fake or fraudulent organization | Not supported. BBB describes itself as a nonprofit with independent local bureaus. |
| Businesses pay for ratings | BBB says dues do not buy a rating. A 2010 news investigation documented paid listings that received favorable grades, and BBB called them mistakes. |
| Accredited businesses get better grades | Partly a selection effect. Accreditation requires at least a B rating, so accredited profiles skew higher. |
| Complaints can be removed for a fee | BBB says accreditation dues do not remove a complaint. |
| The BBB shakes down businesses | Dues fund BBB and accreditation is voluntary. Whether that feels like a shakedown is a judgment, not a documented fact. |
What Pay to Play Actually Means
Pay to play means a rating rises because a business pays, rather than because of its record, and the BBB version of the claim is that accreditation dues buy better grades or make complaints disappear.
The structure that makes the claim plausible is simple. BBB says dues paid by Accredited Businesses fund its work. A business that stays out of accreditation pays no dues. If grades tracked payment, the system would reward the payer. That is the mechanism critics point to, and it is worth stating plainly because the BBB's defenders often avoid it.
BBB's position is the opposite. Its FAQ says the rating reflects a business's complaint history and its interactions with customers, not whether it pays dues, and that accreditation dues do not buy a rating and do not remove a complaint. Those are testable statements, and the next sections test them.
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What Was Documented in 2010
In 2010 ABC News reported that Los Angeles business owners paid a fee to a local BBB and obtained an A-minus for a business that did not exist, and BBB's CEO called it a mistake.
Here is what ABC News reported in November 2010, and we limit ourselves to what that report states. A group of Los Angeles business owners paid $425 to list a nonexistent company and received an A-minus grade. ABC News also filmed two small Los Angeles businesses that were told their C-range grades could rise to A-plus for a $395 membership fee, and it reported that in its examples grades changed after payment information was given. Connecticut's attorney general at the time called the grading system potentially harmful and misleading.
BBB's national president and CEO, Steve Cox, responded that the grade for the fake business was an error, that the questionable listings were mistakes by sales staff that violated sales policy, and that business owners are not able to buy A grades. We have not found a BBB page that reviews that episode, so we cannot tell you what changed afterwards beyond what BBB publishes now.
This episode is from 2010 and involved a local bureau's sales practices. It is real evidence that sales and ratings were once tangled up in some bureaus. It is not evidence about how a rating is calculated today. Judge today's system by today's published rules.
What BBB Publishes Today
BBB's current published material says accreditation is voluntary and separate from the rating, that dues do not buy a rating, and that a rating is built from the information in a business's BBB file.
These are the statements an owner can hold the BBB to.
- Accreditation is voluntary and separate from the rating.
- Accreditation dues do not buy a rating, and they do not remove a complaint.
- A rating is built from information in the BBB file and runs on a 100-point scale from A+ to F.
- There are seven published rating elements, and none of them is accreditation or dues.
- Customer reviews are not used in the letter-grade calculation.
- BBB says a rating is its opinion and not a guarantee of a business's reliability.
Our guide to how BBB ratings work lists every element and point range, and none of them rewards payment. That does not prove no bureau ever misapplies the scale. It does mean the stated system has no pay-for-grade lever, so any claim of one should be treated as a policy violation, not a feature.
Test It Yourself
You can test the pay to play claim in about fifteen minutes by comparing accredited and non-accredited profiles and checking your own grade against the published elements.
Find non-accredited businesses with high grades
BBB profiles state that a business is not accredited and that businesses are under no obligation to seek accreditation. When we checked in November 2026, the Geek Squad profile showed an A+ rating and a notice that the business is not BBB Accredited. That is one counterexample to the idea that a top grade requires dues.
Find accredited businesses with low grades
Accreditation requires at least a B rating, so low-graded accredited businesses should be rare. If you find one, note it and check whether the profile mentions a recent change.
Read the elements against your file
List your complaints by status and age. Compare them to the published ranges, such as 40 to 0 for unanswered complaints and 30 to 0 for unresolved ones.
Check what moved after any outreach
If a bureau pitched you accreditation, write down your grade and file before and after. A sales call is not an input to the rating, per BBB's published elements.
Ask your local BBB in writing
Local BBBs make accreditation decisions and set local requirements. If something looks wrong, ask the office to explain the grade by element.
Be fair to the result you get. Accredited profiles will tend to show higher grades simply because the entry bar is a B. That correlation is a selection effect, and by itself it neither proves nor disproves pay to play. It is the reason a bare comparison of average grades persuades nobody.
Where the Skepticism Is Fair
Three criticisms are fair even if the rating is not for sale: the funding model has an incentive, local bureaus vary, and the rating is an opinion built on whatever is in your file.
Fair criticisms
- Dues fund BBB, so accreditation pitches are also revenue pitches
- Local BBBs are independently run, so experiences differ
- A rating reflects the file, and a file can be thin or out of date
- BBB cannot guarantee the truth of any single review
Claims we cannot support
- That your grade is automatically better if you pay
- That a complaint is removed because of dues, which BBB says is not the case
- That the BBB is a government shakedown, since it holds no regulatory power
- Any statistic about how often grades are wrong, since we found no BBB-published figure
If you are weighing membership, the decision is financial, and we walk through it in is BBB accreditation worth it. If your frustration is with a local bureau, our guide on what does not accredited mean shows how BBB itself frames the non-accredited profile.
The Scam Signals That Are Real
The real scams around the BBB are impostor calls and firms that sell a back door, and BBB publishes warning signs for the first while the second fails a simple test.
BBB says its emails come from addresses ending in @bbb.org and that it will never ask for passwords or access to your device. A caller who threatens your rating unless you pay today is not following BBB's published process. Our guide on why the BBB is calling you covers verification step by step.
The second signal is a firm that says it can change your grade for a fee, no matter what is in your file. Only BBB assigns a rating, so no outside firm can sell you one. What a legitimate firm can do is work the file inside BBB's published rules. We are one of those firms, and we are independent of the BBB. Our work is results-based. Before work begins we agree in writing on the result, such as a B+ moving to an A or a specific complaint being closed, and you pay when that result is delivered. The audit is free with no obligation, and you can start with our BBB rating audit.
We cannot change a grade, remove a complaint by paying anyone at the BBB, or promise a result outside the published rules. Anyone who says they can is describing the scam, not the cure.
Anthony Will
Founder and CEO, Reputation Resolutions
Anthony Will founded Reputation Resolutions and has worked in online reputation management since 2013. Reputation Resolutions is BBB Accredited with an A+ rating and is a Google Partner. Business Rating Fix is its Better Business Bureau rating division.
- In online reputation management since 2013
- Reputation Resolutions: BBB Accredited, A+ rated
- Google Partner
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Fact-checked against bbb.org · Updated November 2026
